The Covent Garden Ladies: The Extraordinary Story of Harris's List (15 page)

For whatever Derrick offered Charlotte in terms of genuine affection, she repaid in comfort and kindness. She shared what she could with Sam, providing him with companionship, support and sustenance, ‘when he had not shoes for his feet’. Aside from Derrick’s persistent hope that his inheritance would one day arrive and alter his needy circumstances, it is unlikely that either of them harboured any illusions concerning the future of their affair. Although it was not an ideal arrangement, neither she nor Sam were in a position to enjoy any other alternative. In his state of penury he could never hope to support her in the luxury she required, while she, as a first-rate lady of pleasure, would never condescend to exchange her existence for
one
of impoverished misery simply to follow the ephemeral joys of love. It is easy to picture the destitute Derrick lying in his lover’s arms, fraught with anguish and unworthiness at his inability to buy them a suitable future. His love for her would have been threaded with the sadness of an impossible situation. Charlotte, too, must have succumbed to a certain degree of despondency – although, with less patience and trust in the promises of men, she eventually would have tired of Sam’s empty assurances. Sam was never able to give her the expensive tokens of love she received from wealthier admirers, and his sence of inadequacy with regard to this never diminished. So many years later, he was still unable to forget what he felt he owed her. While they dwelt under Tracy’s roof, both felt powerless, and dependent in their own ways on the munificence of his bottomless purse.

Forced to adore his mistress from the sidelines, it was not long before hostility sprang from Sam’s feelings of impotence and envy. As a poet, Derrick’s natural inclination was to turn to the might of his pen rather than the force of his sword. Either way, his action was hasty and ill-considered. In the end, its repercussions would be detrimental to Charlotte’s well-being.

In 1755, when relations between the Beau and his mistress were beginning to wane, Sam could conceal his emotions no longer. ‘A Defence of Female Inconstancy’, dedicated to his friend Robert Tracy ‘of Coxscomb, in Gloucestershire’, appeared in print. Derrick had thrown down the gauntlet. If Tracy had eschewed the rumours of his friend’s treachery with his mistress in the past, now he had no cause to doubt them. The epistle not only carried a confirmation of Charlotte’s irregularities but offered a justification for them. Women were inconstant by nature, Sam explained, and were prone to wandering affections. He reasoned:

Why to one man, should woman be confin’d?

Why not unfetter’d, like his freeborn mind?

Is it not better she should the numbers bless?

All smell the rose – but are its sweets the less?

He then ripped the seams out of Tracy, the celebrated paragon of perfection:

Besides, restriction palls the jaded taste;

And in one man few virtues can be trac’d;

If all should in one prodigy unite,

Could such a monster give the least delight?

No, Sam concluded. Tracy’s handsome physique, his charm, his mind and his money were not sufficient to maintain his mistress’s affection. Women know what’s in their best interest, and ‘if worthier objects arise’ then, ‘You can not blame them, to withdraw the prize’. In spite of owning Charlotte, the Beau needed to recognise that his mistress defied her own nature if she did not look elsewhere for someone she truly desired. That someone, of course, was Sam. Finally, he implores his friend to loosen his grip and let Charlotte follow her heart, concluding:

Henceforth, uncensur’d, then, let woman range,

And due reflection be a friend to change.

How Tracy reacted to Derrick’s proclamation is frustratingly unrecorded. Certainly, the code of gentlemanly honour would have demanded the satisfaction of a duel at such a public insult. As Sam is known to have been involved in at least two other exchanges of fire, it is not improbable that this incident may have precipitated a third. Could this have been the culmination of the unfortunate triangle? If so, then all three managed to come through it alive, but it is unlikely that Tracy and Derrick found ample time to repair their injured friendship. A sudden turn of events shortly after the poem’s publication was about to alter each of their lives.

By 1755, the Beau’s finances were in an appalling state. Years of unbridled expenditure and gambling, exacerbated by Charlotte’s efforts at the pump, had come near to draining his resources completely. Even to the casual observer it had become apparent that ‘by pursuing such a line of conduct, Tracy might in time have squandered away the most ample
fortune
in England’. Charlotte, too, had not failed to scent trouble in her keeper’s circumstances, but unfortunately, finding a candidate as generous and as easily manipulated as the Beau was proving difficult. She had been so distracted by her quest to locate a replacement keeper that she was taken entirely by surprise when, without warning, Robert Tracy died.

The ailment that gripped Tracy, a man not yet thirty, is unknown. His will had been drawn up in haste on 14 May 1756, only several days before he expired. The Beau, who until then had lived only for his own pleasure, left a wake of debt behind him. The
Revels
reports that ‘his affairs were much disordered’, and his will records that he was even in arrears to his manservant, William Morgan, for ‘about one hundred pounds’. Knowing that his creditors would be baying outside the door of his chambers, he entrusted a fellow barrister with the task of selling ‘all the said goods, furniture, books, watches, rings’ to pay off what was owing. As was traditional, a small sum was then set aside for the purchase of mourning rings, or tokens of remembrance worn by those closest to the deceased. Tracy specifically left five pounds ‘to my laundress Charlotte Ward’ for this purpose.

In death, the Beau had exacted his much-belated revenge. By the conventions of Charlotte’s profession, such a bequest was nothing short of an insult. The gift of a mourning ring would have been a suitable gesture had it been accompanied by a pension to remunerate Charlotte for her devotion. It was through such bequests and pensions that a courtesan might gather an ample living for herself, so that in old age her security could be assured. Tracy, however, was not about to reward his mistress in death for her offensive behaviour while he lived. He owed her nothing she hadn’t already taken.

The Beau’s departing deed devastated Charlotte, not because she loved him, but because through his calculated reprisal he had set into motion a chain of events that would ruin her. Furious at his betrayal, Charlotte would one day boast to his friends that she never loved Tracy, or ‘any man in her life’. After more than ten years on the town, and as seasoned as she was, her former keeper’s actions were entirely foreseen.
Charlotte
had used his name to secure goods on credit from a multitude of shop-keepers and merchants; now she was unable to pay her bills. Everything she had won by her service to Tracy – all of her plate and jewellery, the fine furniture and silk gowns – had to be pawned. Even then she was not able to make up the shortfall. Without a well endowed keeper, she could no longer maintain either her carriage or her horses. Finally, she dismissed her servants, gave up her expensive lodgings and sought refuge with her mother. Unable to make good on the remainder of her debts, it was only a matter of time before the bailiff traced her whereabouts to Mrs Ward’s front door. Then, as the winter set in, they came for her. As she languished in the spunging house, friends and family took what steps they could to have her exonerated from the charges. Unfortunately, these measures failed, and by early 1757 she was in the Fleet.

Outside the rules of the Fleet, Sam was more disconsolate than ever. Having no funds with which to rescue his mistress, he employed the only gift of use to him in such situations: his infamous charm. According to
Town and Country
, Sam had done what he could to spare Charlotte from her creditors in the period prior to her arrest. He made appeals to those whom she owed the most money, pleading her case in person, begging them not to foreclose on her debts. Sadly, his persuasive words were not able to move the hearts of those holding the unpaid credit notes. Once these methods had failed and Derrick could do no more to save his mistress from the miserable fate awaiting her, he fell back on the tradition of collecting a subscription for the incarcerated. This approach had worked for the imprisoned Lucy Cooper, who had had funds raised on her behalf when she ‘was almost naked and starving, without a penny in her pocket to purchase food, raiment or a coal to warm herself’. The thought of Charlotte enduring similar misfortunes would have plagued him mercilessly. Derrick would have blamed himself at least in part for her troubles. Had poverty not bound his hands so tightly, the woman he loved would not have had to suffer.

In all this time, Sam had only come to see Tracy as an obstacle to his happiness. Instead it seemed he had been the lynchpin in his complicated relationship. Now, Tracy’s much-desired elimination had proven
nothing
short of disastrous. At this juncture, Derrick was unable to provide Charlotte with anything, not stability or even reassurance. In the sinkhole of the Fleet, Sam’s only offerings, his wit, his charm and his gallantry, were useless to her. In her hour of desperate need, she required now, more than ever, the one luxury Sam was never capable of giving her: Robert Tracy’s money.

8

INSPIRATION

IF CHARLOTTE HAYES
had left an impression upon Sam Derrick’s heart, there was another woman who had left one upon his spleen. Even before his poetic outburst of 1755, Sam was coming to recognise that his relationship with Tracy’s mistress was untenable. Irrespective of his passion for her, Sam was not the type of man who would confine his interests to one woman alone. By the end of 1755 the complexities of his situation had become emotionally exhausting enough to prompt him to begin solacing himself elsewhere.

Around this time, Sam had made the acquaintance of a young Covent Garden prostitute. Like so many others, Jane Hemet claimed that she had been abandoned by her husband, a naval captain who had left her destitute in London. She had been no more than sixteen when she had made the foolish match and now, alone and penniless, she had no other choice than to ‘see company’ in order to survive. It was a likely story and one that Sam had heard many times before. Whatever she called herself in those early days, whether Jane Hemet, or Jane Stott, or some other pseudonym adopted for the purposes of offering her services, in later years it would be the name Jane Lessingham that identified her as one of London’s better-loved comic actresses. It is unfortunate that those men who recorded the effects of Jane Lessingham’s life upon her era seem to have nothing pleasant to say. According to John Taylor’s
Records of My Life
, Jane’s nature had been corrupted by her prettiness. In addition to entertaining ‘as many lovers as Anacreon boasts of mistresses’, Jane was unappreciative, amoral and
possessed
‘no restraint of delicacy’. Taylor believed her to be a common whore through and through, with few redeeming qualities. Contemporaries of Mrs Lessingham’s agreed with this assessment, decrying her as ‘a plump lascivious harlot’ and ‘a tasteless milksop’. Derrick, however, probably for the very reasons cited, found her enchanting.

In the future, and not without a good deal of bile, Sam would remember Jane as she was when he met her, a desperate and impoverished teenager in urgent need of a friend. In exchange for protection, food and kindness, Jane willingly provided her services to Derrick. Taylor’s memoirs seem to suggest that before she met Sam, Jane had not considered a career on the stage, but that her lover, with his theatrical eye, saw in her the makings of an excellent performer. He reasoned that if he personally ‘was not calculated to succeed’ upon the stage, then certainly he was capable of training someone to do it for him. Only three years earlier Sam, in his great wisdom as an observer and a critic of dramatic technique, had compiled an assessment of contemporary players and drama in his work,
The Present State of the Stage in Great Britain and Ireland
. Jane was to be his first disciple, the first beneficiary of his knowledge, and so began a concerted campaign to make her stage-worthy. With pretty Jane staring at him adoringly, following his every direction, waiting upon his every utterance, Derrick’s ego stood to benefit enormously. Love was bound to blossom and Sam, always prone to thinking with his heart rather than his head, determined rather unwisely that the two should take up lodgings together.

Loving and coaching Jane filled Derrick with a sense of renewal. As a result, 1755–56 proved to be a fairly prolific period in his literary career. Not only did he finally manage to see his
Collection of Original Poems
in print, but also his translation of
The Third Satire of Juvenal
and his
Memoirs of the Shakespear’s Head
. Although Derrick was still unable to ‘afford an expensive habitation’, his recent publications enabled him to rent a set of rooms ‘on a floor two pairs of stairs high in Shoe Lane, Holborn’. As a neighbourhood composed largely of thieves and prostitutes, Shoe Lane was not exactly a salubrious address in the 1750s, although in the first few months it suited the needs of the couple well
enough,
providing them with a rehearsal space and a home. Jane’s devotion to Sam and her gratitude for his faith in her abilities showed no sign of abating. At the height of their romance she doted on her lover, proclaiming ‘she had so great a partiality for him and his talents, that nothing could have ever weaned her from him’. Jane also began referring to herself as Mrs Derrick, a name which Sam used to introduce her to his friends. But taking up with a harlot and calling her his wife did not sit well with many whom he was keen to impress. To further complicate matters, it is possible that Jane also bore Sam a daughter during the period in which they cohabitated. It was at this point that his otherwise hospitable friends, the Taylor family, broke off relations with the couple. To those of the comfortable middle class, that strata from which Derrick came, this sort of behaviour was unconscionable. Where living on the street made him pathetic, living unmarried with his whore, begetting a bastard by her, and then lying about it made him dishonourable. According to some, Sam’s better judgement had been suffering at the hands of Covent Garden’s sharpers and dissolutes for too long. What may have seemed harmless to his set of young rakes, thespian friends and meretricious companions with their multiple lovers was not acceptable to the better element of society.